NOLA Neighborhoods Without Grocers Part of New Program

Almost 6 years after the levees failed and flooded NOLA, (remember, class?) this remains an important issue.  Things we take for granted, like "makin' groceries" becomes a major production for many in the hardest hit and slow to rebound areas.  The sister has told stories about traveling distances and shopping in groups to save on gasoline and I have no words.  Does this story make you as sad as it does me? 

Using $14 million in loans as a lure, Mayor Mitch Landrieu launched on Tuesday a citywide program to build grocery stores and supermarkets in neighborhoods that don't have them.

The New Orleans Fresh Food Retailer Initiative is designed to give more people, especially low-income New Orleanians, easy access to healthful foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, he said during a City Hall news conference.

Money for the loans will come from $7 million that the city has received in community-development block grants and $7 million from Hope Enterprise Corp., a community-development financial institution based in Jackson, Miss. The loans will be low-interest and, in some cases. forgivable, said Bill Bynum, its chief executive officer.

"This is a program too long in coming that is finally here," Landrieu said. Because of the potential for creating job-generating businesses throughout the city, "this not only promotes healthy diets but also promotes a healthy economy," he said.

Loan applicants can be established supermarket operators or fledgling entrepreneurs, Bynum said, as long as they have a business plan and are committed to providing healthful-food outlets in communities where such stores don't exist.
According to a Tulane University survey, nearly 60 percent of low-income residents said they need to travel more than three miles to reach a supermarket. However, the canvass showed that only 58 percent of the interviewees owned cars.

City Councilman Jon Johnson said the need for such businesses is especially acute in his district, where there are no supermarkets in the Lower 9th Ward and only one in sprawling eastern New Orleans.

By improving the quality of available food, these stores can be catalysts for better health, city Health Commissioner Karen DeSalvo said, because better diets will lower the amount of obesity and lessen the risk of such conditions as diabetes and heart disease.

Once these stores are established, they will be inspected regularly to ensure they are devoting at least 15 percent of their shelf space to healthful foods, said Donald "Diego" Rose, head of the nutrition section in the Department of Community Health Sciences in Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
Working with the city and Hope Enterprise to attract these businesses will be the Food Trust, a nutrition-related advocacy organization from Philadelphia.

The Food Trust proved in its hometown that it could persuade quality businesses to build in neighborhoods that might not seem promising and thrive there, said Yael Lehmann, its executive director. It isn't that difficult, she said at the news conference. "Everybody eats. Everybody's into fresh food."

No one at the news conference knew how many stores would be built, and no one was willing to predict the opening date for the first store built as part of this program. "I don't know" when that will be, Landrieu said, "but I hope soon."

So do I. It's painful to know that this is the state of things in a major US city in the 21st Century following a man-made disaster.

And so it goes.
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